Live Review: Bowling For Soup | Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff | 16/02/18

It might be “stupid, contagious, to be broke and famous” but Bowling For Soup deliver yet another masterclass of their Punk-Rock 101 reputation. Celebrating the fifteenth [1] anniversary of their critically-acclaimed record Drunk Enough To Dance, the band mixed the album’s eighteen song track-list with their other cult favourite hits including 'Almost', 'High-School Never Ends', 'The Bitch Song' and '1985' among others to really complete an evening of ultimate nostalgic partying. Fun from start to finish. A true testament to their back-catalog.

Surprisingly this was Bowling For Soup’s first ever show headlining an arena in their twenty-four year existence as a band. Front-man Jarett Reddick, thanked and complemented the energetic Welsh crowd throughout on sharing such an serial moment with them and one they’ll “never forget”. To their credit, the Texas quartet stepped up their production game for this one and added the likes of fire, smoke machines, television monitors that played additional graphics and old music videos and even the inclusion of a surprise kiss cam for a few unsuspecting members of the audiences. All this with their regular stage set of a bar gave it more of a special feel.

As many people know, one thing you can always expect from BFS is their comedy genius and jokes between songs. They didn't disappoint this time around with gross ramblings about peeing in the shower to Chris acting like the classic villain in a wrestling match, taking a slight dig at Tom Delonge leaving Blink-182 to wave at aliens, all combined with a on screen, Back To The Future style countdown to when they’ll be performing '1985' so fans couldn’t leave early. Mixed in with the fun rendition of their famous theme tune to Disney's Phineas and Ferb, Bowling For Soup are all about having fun and not taking themselves too seriously.

At this stage of their career, they might not be the most spectacular live band in terms of putting on an out of this world show and they do speed up a lot of songs that you would like to hear in the tempo that they were recorded, but they are certainly one you can grab a drink, dance to with your friends and leave with a great big smile on your face, singing to comedic punk stories.